Steve Forbert grew up in Mississippi and has lived in Nashville for the last 20 years. But the 52-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist has spent much of his adult life on the road, and clearly knows his way around New Jersey.

On "Strange Names (North New Jersey's Got 'Em)," a whimsical track from his new album "Strange Names and New Sensations," our new Troubadour of the Turnpike pays tribute to the state's many colorful town names.

"Piscataway and Whippany and Parsippany and Hackensack ... it just started to become a song," says Forbert, who has upcoming shows in Stanhope, Asbury Park and Teaneck. (It would be better if he were coming to Manasquan, Manahawkin and Manalapan, but that will have to do.)

There isn't much of a plot to the song, whose verses are basically just series of playful rhymes:

I ain't from Piscataway
I ain't going that-a-way
West on the Jersey map
Out towards the Water Gap

Hoboken's got me stressed
I'm going to motor west
Out Succasunna way
Netcong or Rockaway

I've seen Paramus, well
That's next to Oradell
Ho-Ho-Kus takes the cake
Wait, that'd be Cheesequake

He sums up the modest point of the song in the bridge, singing, "North New Jersey got/Strange names of towns a lot."

Forbert is not the first singer-songwriter to draw inspiration from the New Jersey road map. New York City folk icon Dave Van Ronk, who died in 2002, came up with a tune called "Garden State Stomp," whose lyrics were simply one Jersey location after another.

Forbert says he has never heard "Garden State Stomp," though he has heard of it.

"Somebody mentioned it a few months ago, and I made a mental note to check it out, but I haven't heard it yet," he says. "I've got some Dave Van Ronk records, but I don't think I have that."

"Strange Names and New Sensations," which will be released on June 26 by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based 429 Records label, features bass playing and production by Garry Tallent of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, though Forbert says he didn't ask for Tallent's help with the "Strange Names (North New Jersey's Got ¤'Em)" lyrics.

Among the album's other tracks is a new version of Forbert's biggest hit, "Romeo's Tune," with a slightly slower beat, and a more prominent harmonica part.

"I thought we'd take another shot at it," says Forbert. "We didn't try to do the same thing, because that was a hit single, and it has an element of magic, I suppose. We just took kind of a different groove on it."

The Stanhope House show will be acoustic, but the Asbury Park and Teaneck concerts will feature Forbert's Soundbenders band: guitarist Steve Allen, bassist Lorne Rall, keyboardist Paul Errico and drummer Randy Skrha.

Forbert says he doubts he will alter the lyrics of "Strange Names (North New Jersey's Got 'Em)" from city to city. He won't add a line about Asbury Park, for instance, when he plays there.

"No, no, that's not a very weird name," he says.

Jay Lustig may be reached at jlustig@starledger.com or (973) 392-5850.